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Welsh history and its sources
Welsh history and its sources

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8.1.3 Sites, buildings and landscapes

Castles of Wales: www.castlewales.com/ home.html [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)]

Lots of interesting material here, some detailed, some generalised. There is a good index of castles in Wales, and plenty of maps. There are also sections on castle architecture, life in castles and castles in art, and numerous other essays, plus some good photographs. There are several contributors, some academic, but the site has an enthusiastic rather than scholarly feel. Still, if you're looking for an extra resource on Welsh castles, you will find things of interest in this site.

The Historic Churches Survey Database: www.cpat.demon.co.uk/ projects/ longer/ churches/ idxall.htm

Database of medieval churches in Wales. Searchable by region and map, with sound academic descriptions of the history and architecture of the churches. Highly recommendable site, backed by Cadw, the historic environment service of the Welsh Assembly Government.

Historic landscapes in Wales: www.cpat.org.uk./ projects/ longer/ histland/ histland.htm

Hosted by Cadw (the historic environment service of the Welsh Assembly Government) and the Countryside Council for Wales, a very attractive and easy-to-use bilingual site examining the historical landscape by regions of Wales. Easy to search regions. Very useful.

Mapping the medieval urban landscape: Edward I's new towns in England and Wales: www.qub.ac.uk/ urban_mapping

Hosted by Queen's University, Belfast, this site looks at the new towns emerging after Edward I's conquest of north Wales. Some good town maps and focus on urban development, with academic commentary.

Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales: www.coflein.gov.uk/

Access in both Welsh and English. Online database for the Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales. Visitors can search for archaeological sites, monuments, buildings and maritime sites using a map or by searching by name or site type. The Coflein system enables direct online public access to many images from the holdings of the National Monuments Record of Wales Archive, including photographs, scanned hard-copy drawings and PDF versions of survey reports and other text documents. Very useful resource.